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U.S. GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO PARTNER MORE FOR CYBERSECURITY

According to some officials at the Homeland Security Department, the government has not been doing an adequate job of forging public/private relationships in order to promote cyber-security.

Though progress has been made, officials are urging the government to develop more relationships with private sectors in the future. More immediate tasks like creating a critical network to survive a disastrous attack are also of great importance.

The government has begun to model digital attacks, which will help to build a sustainable network infrastructure, but more work needs to be done.

Officials are reminding the government to keep their focus on cyberterrorism broad. Long term, the government must improve software industry practices to evaluate code and write secure software. In addition, the government should keep an eye on the proliferation of backdoor and piggyback devices that are sometimes bundled in with software.

Three new groups have been formed to assist in the national cybersecurity initiative. The Chief Information Security Officers Forum is composed of senior cybersecurity officials. The Government Forum of Incident Response Teams is made up of cybersecurity system operators from various civilian and military federal agencies. They will work to solve interoperability issues.

A third is the Cyber Interagency Incident Management Group, which is made up of law enforcement, national security and Defense Department officials that work on coordinating plans for responding to incidents.